What I have observed while scrolling through Tumblr for six years is that there is an abundance of posts that feature pictures of white girls. White girl legs. White girl hair. White girl hands. A lot of white men too. Pictures of just white men jaws. White men collar bones. You get it. With the abundance of white people pictures comes with a surprising amount of notes. When I say surprising, I mean there are posts of just hands that reach more than a thousand notes. This isn't exactly the issue here. It's alright to have posts like these circulating around Tumblr. The issue is that there is a lack of posts like these that feature people of color.

A certain Tumblr user, expect-the-greatest, proposed an idea to the community. On March 6, 2015, during Black History Month, the black community of Tumblr should post selfies and reblog and or like those selfies.

T'von, or expect-the-greatest

"Damn, I’m not seeing enough Black people on my dash”. Of course I see a constant amount of Black celebrities but what about the regular people? Where is their shine? ...I thought about the tag #Black Friday, and making it a tradition on the first Friday of every month, because celebrating the beauty of Blackness is of the UTMOST importance. I’m really sick and tired of seeing the “European standard of beauty” prevail. It’s past time for the beauty of Black people to be showcased. I love all people of color, but this here is for us."(x)

And people agreed with him. People spread the word, made some rules, created the tag #BlackOutDay, and even made a logo. To properly define what #BlackOutDay is, below is a quotation taken from the official masterpost.

"In a show of community and solidarity, for those 24 hours, we are exclusively posting and reblogging pics, gifs, videos, selfies, etc. of Black people. We want to show that Black History is happening today, right now. That we are all Black History."(x)

Created by blckoutqueen

User arboreyes

User sensitiveandopinionated

User so-unimpressed

User alexandermaxwell

User marslarouge

User menifee901

It was a Tumblr exclusive movement and up to this day I still see Black Out posts on my dashboard. Honestly, at first I didn't think much of the event because it was just people posting and reblogging selfies. It didn't seem that revolutionary. But on the day itself, I saw people posting selfies with captions saying how they feel so empowered and proud of their skin color. Some said they finally found an excuse to post pictures of themselves on their own blog. #BlackOutDay was promoting self-confidence, love, unity, and so much more. I felt happy for those people who had finally overcome their anxiety over their skin color. There were so many beautiful people and I just wondered why would you doubt your beauty with that face?

This event has inspired the Asian community of Tumblr to rally its members to do the same on May 8th. Below is a picture explaining the details.

This is such a good thing to shed light and give love to the minorities on Tumblr. I hope that there would be Native American Day, Hispanic Day, and there is even rumored to be a transgender or non-binary day, to celebrate all kinds of men and women. I'm not saying that we should stop liking or reblogging pictures that feature white people. What I'm saying is that there is plenty of love to go around.